Mapped railway dreams, geographical knowledge and the Norwegian Parliament, 1845–1908

Abstract

ABSTRACT The purpose of the article is to examine the interrelation between maps and politics in Norwegian railway planning between 1845 and 1908. The author presents a historical discourse analysis with a focus on the Norwegian Parliament. The main finding is that maps were strategically used in the debates on railway construction and seldom criticized. Those with interests in railway building regarded mathematical precision and detailed maps as tools to ‘master’ snow, overcome distances and topographical obstacles, as well as to build the future nation. For these interests, the maps seemed to provide neutral proof of the course that they deemed nature itself recommended. Three main types of railway maps were published and discussed in written parliamentary proceedings: maps of alternative lines, maps of railway networks, and topographic profiles. These maps were both the product and producer of a modern way of describing the earth, namely a ‘technocratic geography’, meaning geography as a call for transformation and a matter of planning. The author concludes that maps and geography were political matters in Norwegian railway planning in the period 1845–1908. Railway politics not only generated new maps and new geographical knowledge but also contributed to a new understanding of geography itself as starting point for transformations.